Desert Demon

By Gary Gregor

Major Crime investigators Russell Foley and Sam Rose are on the hunt again.

This time their prey, using the vast and remote Aussie Outback as a hiding place, is killing innocent holidaymakers near some of the Territory's popular tourist attractions.

When a cop's wife is killed, the investigation escalates. Boxed in the iconic Kata Tjuta, the killer seems prepared to go to any lengths in order to make his way out. And this time, Sam's girlfriends' life is also on the line.

But will she become another one of the victims, and can Foley & Rose survive the inevitable final confrontation with the killer?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Dec 14, 2021
• ISBN: 4867509671

Book preview

1

Forty-two-year-old Gordon Watson was the owner and licensee of the Mount Dare Hotel situated in South Australia, on the western edge of Witjira National Park in the Simpson Desert and just ten kilometres south of the Northern Territory border. The Mount Dare Hotel was about as far away from Adelaide, South Australia’s capital city, as anyone could be without being labelled a Territorian. Watson owned and managed the ‘Outback’ pub jointly with his forty-three-year-old wife Margaret, and their fourteen-year-old daughter Jacinta.

The decision to take the not insignificant gamble and buy the remote, extremely isolated hotel three years earlier was precipitated by the much anticipated and feared closure of the General Motors Holden vehicle manufacturing plant, located in the satellite city of Elizabeth, approximately twenty-five kilometres north-east of Adelaide.

Gordon and Margaret first met on the vehicle assembly line at the huge GMH plant when they were both in their late teens and had worked there, virtually side-by-side, ever since. It was a repetitive job, some would say mundane and boring but, after twenty-five years on the line, it was all either of them knew how to do. Their combined income was sufficient and adequate for them to enjoy a reasonably comfortable, middle-class lifestyle, but the upcoming plant closure meant there would be in excess of nine hundred former employees competing for just a handful of job opportunities in totally unfamiliar, unrelated fields of employment.

It was the Watson’s love of the great Australian adventure that motivated their ultimate decision. They had, ever since Jacinta was a toddler, enjoyed annual holiday sojourns into the great Aussie outdoors; and the more remote, the better.

At first it was in a tent, strapped securely on top of their conventional two-wheel-drive vehicle, a Holden of course, which was packed tight with all the necessary camping gear. Then, as their confidence and love of the Aussie Outback grew, they graduated to a four-wheel-drive, another Holden, and an off-road caravan.

They were good times and, at the end of a long day exploring the surrounding wilderness with Jacinta, Gordon and Margaret, while sitting around a camp-fire sipping wine, often talked of how wonderful it would be to live permanently in ‘the bush’.

Having worked so long for the company, both Gordon and Margaret received substantial superannuation payouts when their employment came to a premature end. This, combined with their slightly more than modest savings, left them not wealthy but reasonably comfortable, and confident they could survive financially for some time while they searched for employment opportunities they could enjoy together, as a family.

By pure happenstance, Gordon spotted a small article in the weekend newspaper reporting that the historic Mount Dare Hotel in the far north of the state had been placed on the market by the current owners. As a family, the Watsons had briefly visited the hotel a few years earlier on one of their more extended Outback getaways to the distant Dalhousie Thermal Springs. The Springs were a popular camping spot approximately seventy kilometres south of Mount Dare Hotel, and for those hardy travelers brave enough to traverse the vast distance over rough, corrugated dirt roads, it was an idyllic location to stop, camp for a while, and soak in the invigorating warmth of over one-hundred-and-twenty thermal springs.

Gordon remembered how he, Margaret, and Jacinta loved the history, remoteness, and sheer beauty of the Witjira National Park and, considering it was just a small part of the huge Simpson Desert landscape, for the Watsons, it put a whole new perspective on the term ‘desert’.

He remembered how, on continuing their journey, they talked for hours about how wonderful it would be to live in that part of the country. Now, by a strange yet fortuitous twist of fate, it seemed that all the stars were aligned, and this was their chance to finally live the dream.

The asking price for the hotel was in keeping with a potential purchaser’s expectations, given the geographical isolation of the place and, fortunately, it also worked in favour of the Watson’s budget considerations. They could afford to buy the pub without the need to take out a mortgage against their current home. It would knock their savings around somewhat but at least they didn’t have to spend a lot of time convincing their bank manager that buying into a remote hotel on the fringes of the Simpson Desert was a financially viable proposition. It was a bold career change by anyone’s standards, but they had lost the only job they ever had; they had reached the middle-age milestone and, sometimes in life, you simply had to look beyond the negatives and dive into the deep end.

Realistically, there were only two reasonably well-formed roads leading to the Mount Dare Hotel, one from beyond the Northern Territory border to the north, and one from Adelaide over thirteen-hundred kilometres to the south. Neither road was sealed over its complete distance and, regardless of the direction of travel, from the north or the south, traversing either was totally dependent on the prevailing weather conditions. There were other ways to move across Simpson Desert but such ill-defined, challenging tracks were generally used by the more adventurous and dedicated four-wheel-drivers, rather than the annual, family-orientated tourist using their annual leave for a brief, exciting, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime excursion to arguably one of Australia’s most remote desert attractions.

It rained rarely in the Simpson Desert, but when it did, it almost always rained heavily, sometimes for days on end without respite. The roads became impassable, even to the most enthusiastic four-wheel-drivers, and it was not uncommon to find the odd fool-hardy motorist bogged to the axles and stranded in the middle of nowhere, desperately waiting for help to arrive and save them from their own stupidity.

Tourist attractions like Dalhousie Springs and Mount Dare became inaccessible in the wet and were subsequently cut-off from to the outside world, sometimes for days, or even weeks at a time. After three years managing the Mount Dare Hotel, Gordon and Margaret Watson knew better than to try attempt to head south. The rain had not affected the southern part of the Northern Territory, however, and with the border just ten kilometres away, it was the best and only option if they were still determined to holiday back in Adelaide.

The Watsons elected to take the northern road, not because they preferred to, but because the southern road was closed. Ultimately, it was a decision that would cost them their lives.

Look at that, Margaret Watson said, pointing at a dust cloud on the road some distance ahead of them. That’s the first car we’ve seen since we left the pub.

Someone else who doesn’t want to get stranded in the mud in the middle of nowhere, Gordon suggested.

Fourteen-year-old Jacinta yawned and sat up from where she had been napping, leaning against the side window in the back seat behind her father. What is it, Mum? she asked sleepily.

Just another car up ahead, darling, Margaret answered. Go back to sleep, dear.

Jacinta fluffed up her favorite pillow she’d brought with her from home, laid back against the window and promptly fell back to sleep.

Although they were traveling at a sensible and cautious speed given the rough, corrugated road conditions, the Watsons seemed to be gaining rapidly on the vehicle ahead.

He’s going bloody slow, Gordon muttered.

Probably being over careful, Margaret offered. It’s been a while since they graded this road.

Accordingly, as the gap between them closed, the dust cloud thrown up by the vehicle ahead thickened considerably, offering little more than an occasional glimpse of the other vehicle and forcing Gordon to slow down to a much safer speed lest he run into the back of the car ahead. It was a four-wheel-drive utility he noticed through the swirling dust, with a soft, canvas canopy over the rear cargo bed and two spare wheels secured on a roof-rack over the cabin.

Can you go around him? Margaret asked.

Yeah, maybe, Gordon said. But he’s driving in the centre of the road and it’s hard to see what’s up ahead of him through this dust.

I’m sure it will be safe, Margaret assured him. What are the odds of there being three vehicles on this road at any one time?

I’ll pull out a bit until I can see past him. Gordon began to move slowly to the right, drifting beyond the centre of the road to a point where he could get a view of the road ahead of the utility.

Suddenly, through the dust cloud, the brake lights on the utility glowed red and the vehicle slowed and stopped in the middle of the road.

Shit! Gordon exclaimed loudly. He pressed his foot hard on the brake pedal and slowed to a stop less than twenty metres behind the utility. What the hell is he doing?

Maybe he’s got engine trouble, Margaret suggested. Move up alongside him and we’ll ask him if he needs help.

That was the second bad decision the Watsons made.

Gordon eased his foot from the brake pedal, pulled out and moved slowly forward, coming to a stop when Margaret’s passenger side window drew level with the driver’s side window of the utility.

Jacinta opened her eyes and, straining against the tug of the seatbelt, leaned forward between her parents. Why are we stopping?

We think this man has engine trouble, Jac, Gordon answered, using his daughter’s nickname. Maybe we can help him. He leaned forward and looked past Margaret at the vehicle next to them. Wind your window down, hon.

Margaret pushed the button on the armrest of her door and the window slid silently down.

The stranger in the utility was alone. For a moment, he sat motionless behind his closed, dust-covered window, staring across at Margaret peering back at him through her open window.

Are you okay, sir? Margaret called.

The man did not stir.

Sir, are you okay? Can we help? Are you having engine trouble?

The stranger glanced down briefly, and his window began to slide down. He looked back at Margaret and smiled.

We thought you might be having car trouble, Margaret smiled back at the man.

Suddenly, Margaret’s eyes widened in fear. A freezing chill clawed at her chest and ice-cold fingers wrapped tightly around her heart and squeezed.

The man moved slightly in his seat, and then his hand appeared out through his open window. In his fist he held a gun. He reached out into the narrow void between the two vehicles, smiled even wider and pulled the trigger—twice.

The first bullet hit Margaret slightly above her right eye. Her head jerked violently sideways, and a bright-red blood spray spattered the windscreen. Restrained by her seatbelt, she slumped sideways, across the centre console between herself and her husband. She never even heard the gunshot.

Gordon Watson never had time to register shock or horror at what had just happened to his beloved wife. The second bullet, fired almost instantaneously with the first, hit him in the centre of the forehead, just above his nose. His head flew back, cracked hard against the driver’s side window, and then he slumped forward, his head crashing against the top of the steering wheel. Gordon had heard the shot that killed his wife—he’d never heard the second one.

Gordon’s foot slipped from the brake pedal and the car, still in ‘Drive’ mode, began to move slowly forward, veering to the righthand verge of the road. It bumped across the slightly raised verge and finally jolted to a sudden stop, wedged on top of a large clump of desert spinifex approximately twenty metres from where the Watsons’ had stopped to help a fellow motorist. Gordon’s lifeless hand, still resting on the gearshift lever, reacted to a nerve spasm and nudged the lever forward into ‘Neutral’ and now the vehicle, with its engine idling quietly and the driver’s side-front wheel raised slightly off the ground, rested at an odd angle on top of the spinifex. The wheel turned slowly for a few revolutions and then finally stopped.

Jacinta screamed and screamed. Confused and disorientated from sleep, she had no real concept of what had just happened, except that it was bad. Her parents were slumped awkwardly in their seats in the front of the vehicle and there was blood—so much blood. It was all over the front windscreen and her father’s side window, and both their faces. All she could do was scream. Rational, constructed thought was non-existent. She screamed as the vehicle rolled across the road, over the verge, and onwards, until it came to rest on top of the spinifex. The ungodly screaming pierced the relative silence of the isolated location. She never stopped screaming until the passenger-side rear door opened. She turned her head away from the horrible visions in the front seat and looked across at the smiling face leaning into the vehicle.

A dirty, unwashed face leered across the narrow gap between herself and the stranger. Then he raised his hand, and for the first time, Jacinta saw the gun. In the confined space of the rear seat, it looked huge. Frozen by terror into numbing silence, she wanted to scream but could not. Fear gripped her so tightly, her throat contracted to a point where she could hardly breathe. And then she didn’t—ever again.

2

Standing at close to 198 cm tall and weighing in at around 115 kg, Mathew ‘Moose’ McKenzie was an imposing man by any measure. The nickname well suited him. When Moose spoke, everyone listened. It was hard not to when the big, deep, booming-bass voice reverberated through the air. Moose’s father had given him the nickname when Moose was just a teenager and, now, all these decades later, there were some who had known him for years who still didn’t know his real name. His mother said he could easily have been an opera singer with his God-given deep, baritone voice. However, as well-meaning and caring as his mother was, the flaw in her preferred career choice for her son was that Moose couldn’t sing a note without clearing a room.

As far as his colleagues in the Northern Territory Police Force were concerned, if there was trouble on the streets, Moose was the cop you wanted on your team. Moose would, and could, stand toe-to-toe with the worst of the troublemakers and never take a backward step.

Moose believed diplomacy was best administered with a closed fist rather than some fan- dangled, new-age counselling bullshit. There was no reasoning with an intoxicated fool in the middle of the street when bottles and cans launched by his equally inebriated mates were whizzing past your ears, Moose advocated. Although not openly encouraged by his superiors, Moose’s approach to street policing was reminiscent of the way things were done in the good old days. More importantly, it worked.

Moose was the officer-in-charge of Kulgera Police Station, approximately 140 kilometres to the east of where he now stood, staring across at the Toyota Landcruiser sitting at a jaunty angle atop a large clump of tightly packed spinifex grass. He began walking cautiously towards the vehicle, stopped about ten metres short of it, and spent a few moments just looking at the sight before him.

The engine of the Landcruiser was still running, the rear passenger-side door was open, and the front passenger-side window was down. He was close enough to see there were three people inside the vehicle, two in the front, and one in the back. None of the people appeared to be moving. All the blood he could see splattered about inside the vehicle might be a good reason for that, he mused.

Steeling himself, he stepped closer to the vehicle, leaned forward and looked through the open door into the rear compartment. A young girl, in her early teens he guessed, lay slumped sideways against the rear driver’s-side window, her head resting against a blood-soaked pillow. Her mouth was open wide, like it was locked in a silent scream, and her dead eyes were also open, staring at the back of the driver’s seat. There was a neat, bloody hole, dead centre in the middle of her forehead and that, together with the large amount of blood that had run down her face and soaked into her shirt front, was a good indication to Moose that checking the girl for any signs of life would be a fruitless exercise.

Dragging his eyes from the dead girl, he moved forward a little and looked through the open window into the front of the vehicle. These had to be the girl’s parents, he supposed. Both were irrefutably dead. There was more blood splattered throughout the front seat area than Moose had ever seen anywhere in the twenty-five years he had been a cop.

Fuck, he murmured quietly. This is not fuckin’ good!

He walked slowly around to the front of the vehicle, dropped to one knee and looked underneath at the large spinifex obstruction jammed soundly under the oil sump. Then, with a grimace and an audible grunt, he pushed himself to his feet, the arthritic twinge in his knee protesting painfully. He continued around the front of the vehicle until he reached the driver’s-side door, which he carefully opened, reached in and turned off the ignition. He stood back and, for a moment or two, looked at the bodies of Gordon Watson and his wife, and then again at the dead girl in the back seat. The loud ticking of the engine as it cooled was the only sound, incongruous against the silence of the surrounding desert.

He waved at an incessant swarm of flies buzzing annoyingly around his face and looked beyond the dead girl in the back seat. The rear cargo compartment was packed high with luggage. Must have been going on holidays, he guessed. Or going home from holidays. Either way, it had to be the worst possible way to start, or end, a family vacation.

Back on the road, standing next to the Kulgera station vehicle, Moose’s partner, Colin Palmer, the second man at the Kulgera two-man station, was talking to Laurie Anderson, the man who first happened upon the grisly scene.

Moose McKenzie walked back across to the road and spoke to his partner.

Constable First Class Palmer closed his official notebook and indicated the unfortunate driver who had unwittingly stumbled upon the crime scene. Mister Anderson has given me a full statement. He is on his way to Finke and then on to Alice Springs. I have his contact details and he has agreed to make himself available should we need to speak with him further.

Moose looked at Anderson. What do you do, Laurie? It is Laurie, isn’t it?

Yes, sir, it is. I’m a diesel mechanic, Anderson answered. I do private work for members of the public who choose to live out here and use diesel-generated power for their establishments. I’m also contracted to the Northern Territory government to service the large generators in remote aboriginal settlements.

Must keep you busy, Moose said.

I have a large area to cover, Anderson explained. Seems I’m always on the road driving somewhere.

Moose nodded towards the Watson’s vehicle. You know those people? he asked.

Yeah, Anderson said. I told your partner. He glanced across at the Landcruiser. Gordon Watson, his wife Margaret, and their daughter, Jacinta. They have the Mount Dare Hotel, ten kilometres across the border in South Australia.

When was the last time you saw them?

Early this morning, Anderson answered. I stayed there last night and serviced the pub generator early this morning. They left to travel to Adelaide for a three-week break. I was supposed to head south to Oodnadatta and then on to William Creek as part of my service run but the road is closed. When I finished the service on their generator, I headed back this way. I recognised their Landcruiser and wondered why it was parked that way. I guessed something was wrong and stopped to check it out. Bloody near had a heart attack when I saw it was the Watsons.

You touch anything in the car?

No, sir. I could see they were all dead and rang you straight away. I have a satellite phone in my van. I just waited here until you blokes arrived.

Was there anyone else here when you got here?

No, no one. I told your partner, Anderson said again.

Was anyone else traveling with the Watsons?

No, just the three of them.

Any other motorists come along before we arrived?

No, sir. Don’t get a lot of traffic out here in this country.

Moose turned to his partner. "You have all we need from Mr Anderson, Colin?’

Yeah, got it all, Palmer affirmed. I’ve given Laurie our phone number in case he thinks of something he might have forgotten.

Okay. Moose looked at Anderson. Thanks for everything, Laurie. He offered Anderson his hand. We won’t keep you any longer. I’m sorry it was you who had to see this.

Anderson shook Moose’s hand. If not me, it would have been someone else eventually. Better me than perhaps another family like the Watsons. Not a nice thing for a wife and young kids to see.

"Not nice for anyone to see, mate, Moose agreed. Thanks again, and we will be in touch if we need to speak to you further."

Anderson shook hands with Palmer and then got into his vehicle and drove away, taking one last look across at the Watsons’ Landcruiser as he left.

Moose McKenzie watched Anderson drive away